St. Louis — There are no expansion teams in college football, but if there were, the Indiana State football program would come close to fitting the bill.
There’s a newly-configured league. There’s a new coaching staff. There’s a new system on both sides of the ball. There are 42 new Sycamores arriving for the team’s first practice next Thursday. There are virtually no positions on the team locked up for any one player. ISU coach Trent Miles reiterated during Tuesday’s Missouri Valley Football Conference media day that there is open competition at every position.
It’s a new day … for everyone. Forget about whether the fans or media make sense of it all, how do the players make heads or tails of their fate when they haven’t even met many of the teammates they’ll be working with side-by-side on fall Saturday’s? When very few, if any, roles have been defined. Absolutely nothing is certain.
It’s a daunting mental as well as physical challenge for ISU to turn its football fortunes. The foundation is put down with a talented recruiting class along with hours upon hours of preparation by Miles’ coaching staff, but then what?
The approach ISU’s players are taking is the team that stays together, plays together.
Camaraderie is one of the first steps that ISU is taking to rise out of its doldrums. Something as simple as camaraderie sounds elementary, but its been anything but during ISU’s infamous 1-38 record its compiled since September 2004.
Since then, ISU’s losing created factions within the team, a circumstance that the previous coaching staffs could or would not do much to remedy. It’s debatable whether harmony or dissension really mattered given the talent level, but certainly, the dissension didn’t help.
It’s a problem that Miles decided to tackle from the start. If ISU wasn’t going to act like a team, there’s no way they could perform like a team and improve.
“It’s accountability. They all have to be accountability to each other. We say, ‘team above self.’ If you’re laying around on your butt not doing what you’re supposed to be doing, and your teammates pick up on that, you have no camaraderie,” Miles said.
The players, those who chose to remain, had to buy into Miles’ mentality or else, so it wasn’t as if they had a choice. But camaraderie didn’t necessarily come at the point of a gun. With just one win in the last three seasons, many of the remaining Sycamores were willing to give any approach a try that would change their fortunes for the better.
“We’re always talking about doing the right thing. We had situations in the past where we didn’t necessarily do the right thing, and I’m not sure if it didn’t carry over to the football field,” said ISU wide receiver Ryan Patrick, who is transitioning from defense to offense. “That’s a big start, because we’re developing a family, we’re developing a bond with one another. Everyone talks to everyone now and I haven’t seen that in the past. I go hang out with the freshmen. I hang out with the seniors. If you gel together off the field, you gel on the field.”
The camaraderie came through hard work. Comparing ISU’s offseason regimen to military boot camp is probably a bit much, but it had the same effect. Camaraderie born out of shared experience.
“Its been one of the toughest off-seasons since I’ve been here,” ISU linebacker Jayden Everett said. “The team camaraderie came from off-season training. It was hard, but the cream rises to the top, the people that want to endure and be part of the team. And when you go through something like that, you get molded together. With all of the new coaches and changes, all we had was us.”
It wasn’t all blood, sweat and tears. Once in a while, the coaching staff threw the players a curveball to foster team unity.
“We worked for a month straight, even on Saturdays, but then one day we went bowling,” Everett said. “[The coaches] have better relationships with the players and they actually care what we do. If you’re first or third team, it doesn’t matter, the coaches treat you the same.”
Camaraderie is not just important for morale, but laying a positive foundation. When those 42 new Sycamores begin practice next week, they’re not unlike newborn ducks. The imprinting they get from their new teammates is going to play a huge role in how quick they transition into productive players, thus making the program itself successful. Miles would prefer that the imprinting not have to be spelled out, but that it develops as a matter of course.
“I don’t want [the players] to talk about it, I just want them to do it. To lead by example. Do what you’re supposed to do when you’re supposed to do it. Be where you’re supposed to be when you’re supposed to be there. Give great effort. That’s what they can do,” Miles said. “Talk is cheap. We’ve done a lot of talking in the past, we want action. They can take them under their wing and show them the right way.”
The players have bought into themselves, now they’re ready to get their new teammates to buy in too.
“We have a lot of new teammates coming in. It’s our job to instill that competitiveness and believe, to believe in everything coach Miles is teaching. They’re going to come in new and they’re going to follow what they see. We’re going to show them what hard work is. We’re going to get them on board and turn this around,” Everett said.
Todd Golden is sports editor of the Tribune-Star. He can be reached at (812) 235-5450 or todd.golden@tribstar.com.
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